


Three Ways Peggy Carter Could Have Come Back From the Dead - And One Way She Did

by HarmonyLover



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 14:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonyLover/pseuds/HarmonyLover
Summary: There are lots of ways that Peggy Carter could come back forInfinity Wars. These are four of them.





	Three Ways Peggy Carter Could Have Come Back From the Dead - And One Way She Did

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was based on [this speculative article](https://nerdist.com/avengers-infinity-war-bring-back-peggy-carter/). It was so nice to write something for fun again! Be warned, there's a considerable amount of handwaving about all manner of things in here.

1.

“You realize that I have no idea if this will work,” Stephen said a bit dryly.

“Yes, you do, Doctor. You saw the dead come back alive how many times, when you were creating the time loop with Dormammu?” Coulson asked.

“Many times, but that loop had a definitive end, an outcome,” Stephen pointed out. “It also had a definitive beginning point, a crisis that I was trying to avert. In addition, Dormammu existed in the Dark Dimension, which is beyond Time. I could manipulate time at will there, without consequences to anyone but myself. This is . . . even if I can bring Agent Carter back, I don’t know if she will be here indefinitely, if she will age again as normal, if bringing her back will affect this timeline or the timeline of the life she’s already lived – there are a million potential possibilities. Not to mention that Miss Carter has been dead for several days, not minutes.”

Phil looked at the casket covered in flowers that was in front of them. After the funeral service, Phil had enlisted Daisy to get the casket out of the ground and have it brought somewhere safe – and since he needed Stephen and the Time Stone anyway, it seemed only logical to bring the coffin to Bleeker Street.

Stephen had not been terribly pleased to be ambushed, particularly by a SHIELD agent he didn’t know, and someone who was also supposedly dead. Stephen had done his reading; he knew who Phil _was_ – but he had no reason to trust him, yet, and Phil didn’t expect him to. And now Phil was asking him to bend the laws of time itself – which Strange hadn’t had a problem doing with Dormammu, but as Strange himself said, that had been a crisis of the first order, with the destruction of the world at stake.

Of course, Phil thought grimly, another crisis of that magnitude was coming, and they all knew it, which was what had brought him here.

“Doctor, I can’t impress upon you enough how invaluable Peggy Carter is to SHIELD, to the fight that is coming toward us, to Captain Rogers,” Phil said aloud. “She has an incredible amount of information that we very well might need – and she is more than formidable in a fight, and a master at political maneuvering, which is something else we desperately need. Even if all that weren’t true, I’m very worried about Captain Rogers and how he is reacting to this whole mess with the Sakovia Accords and the splitting of the Avengers. He needs someone in his corner, and no one was more in his corner than Peggy, so the history books tell us. He told me the same,” Phil said firmly.

“If it was your Dr. Palmer in this coffin, wouldn’t you try?” Phil added softly. He knew it was a low blow, but he hoped it would be enough to push Doctor Strange to his side.

Stephen sighed heavily, then nodded. “Very well. Help me.”

The two of them opened the heavy lid of the coffin, and Stephen opened the Eye of Agamotto that hung around his neck, lifting Peggy’s wrist delicately and murmuring as he created a green chain of magic around her wrist and forearm.

When Stephen stepped back, Phil watched in astonishment as Peggy de-aged before his eyes, changing so rapidly it was almost like watching the frames of a film as they flicked by. When all of the changes stopped, Peggy lay before them looking like she was back in her mid-twenties – but she wasn’t awake.

Stephen frowned and reached out a hand, the surgeon in him momentarily taking over as he found the pulse at her neck. “She’s definitely alive, but I don’t know why she hasn’t – “

At which point Peggy opened her eyes and sat up with a jerk and a gasp, startling both men and causing them to step back. Peggy took them in with a steely gaze.

“Agent . . . Coulson, isn’t it? You were just a new recruit when I retired. And I don’t know you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Stephen. She looked around, noting the coffin and the odd surroundings of the Sanctum Sanctorum, then down at her hands and the brown hair that spilled over her shoulders.

“What the hell have you done?” she demanded, her voice remarkably steady, but Phil could hear the building fury underneath, the urge to dress someone down for insubordination and recklessness, and he knew without a doubt that Agent Carter was still herself, at least for now.

“Welcome back, Agent Carter,” Phil said warmly, though he wasn’t foolish enough to smile at her right at this moment. “I’m afraid there’s rather a lot to fill you in on, but it’s good to have you back.”

 

2.

Natasha looked around warily as they entered the long-abandoned office, buried under a tiny storefront that, historically, had been a theatrical agency.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“It’s an old SSR base,” Steve said. “I found it in some historical records, when I was looking for a place to hide out. I didn’t know what I was going to find, though, so . . . thanks for coming.”

“You’re an idiot, and I’m mad at you, but you’re still family,” Natasha said. “I wouldn’t let you go into a place like this with no backup.”

Steve smiled at her gratefully, and both of them held their weapons at the ready as they walked slowly down the hallway. As they came into a wider, more open space that had clearly been the office, they split and each took one side of the room, checking the side rooms and looking for any hidden traps. They had done enough missions together that they were well-rehearsed at this.

“I think it’s clear,” Natasha began, but she abruptly tensed again as the lights flickered on. Steve braced himself, too, looking around for any kind of assailant. Instead, a soft voice spoke, seemingly out of the air.

“Hello, Steve.”

Steve’s face went white, and for a moment Natasha thought he might actually faint. She stepped forward, keeping herself covered with her handgun. She was experiencing a decidedly unpleasant feeling of déjà vu.

“Who are you? Show yourself!” she demanded.

“I don’t have a body, Agent Romanoff,” the voice responded, and Natasha could have sworn she sounded amused. “I am a computer, a consciousness. I’m very real, but I can’t stand in front of you.”

“Peggy,” Steve choked, and he sounded wrecked, anguished, furious. Natasha holstered her gun and made her way over to him, laying a hand reassuringly on his arm. “Who did this to you? They – they made you into a computer? They turned you into a . . . a _thing_ , like that bastard Zola? I will _kill_ them, I swear to God; if there is even one of them left, I will make them wish they were never born.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that, my darling,” Peggy replied, and now she sounded sad. “I’m sorry to have you find me this way, though I suppose you would have found out eventually.”

Natasha guided Steve over to a chair and pulled it out for him, pressing gently on his shoulder until he sat. She knew the terrible hole it had ripped in him when Peggy had died, and to find her mind here, turned into A. I., conversing with them, was surreal to say the least. But for Steve, it had to feel like having that hole opened up all over again.

Steve hunched over in his chair, burying his face in his hands. Peggy began speaking again, tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure what Steve’s reaction would be.

“When I retired, I wanted a way for my memories to be. . . preserved,” Peggy said carefully. “I was fairly sure that someone had infiltrated SHIELD, though I never dreamed of the scope of the problem, and I was afraid that much of what we had accomplished was going to be lost, either purposefully buried or simply forgotten. Howard . . . Howard was dead by then, but Jarvis knew he had been working on an artificial intelligence program, and where it was. I reached out to Hank Pym, who I had worked with at SHIELD; he had created Pym Technologies on his own, but he still thought highly of me, and I knew he had the skills to make Howard’s program work. I spent hours sitting in his lab with electrodes attached to my head, letting him transfer everything into electronic form. After I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, of course, I was even more glad that I had done it.”

“So you . . . remember everything?” Steve said, his voice cracking, and Natasha squeezed his shoulders in sympathy.

“Everything,” Peggy answered. “Everything, at least, up until that moment in Hank’s lab, and I was able to keep track of my older self via electronic means. Tony’s J. A.R. V. I. S. was very helpful with that as well, until he became Vision.”

Steve laughed, but it was more like a sob. “You know J. A. R. V. I. S.”

“Oh, yes. He was the one who found me, actually, when he was scanning old SSR locations, and after that he talked to me and kept me updated on what was happening. Tony did quite an extraordinary job of making him like my Jarvis – J. A. R. V. I. S. is not exactly the same as Edwin, but he is a lovely mind in his own right. I was quite fond of him.”

“He never said,” Steve replied, and the anger was back again, low and furious.

“J. A. R. V. I. S. never told Tony, either, Steve,” Peggy said gently. “I asked him not to; I never told Tony what I was up to, and I don’t think he would take it well to know that an A. I. version of his Aunt Peggy is in a defunct office in California. I didn’t think you would take it well, either, and clearly you aren’t,” she finished, and again, Natasha could hear the frown.

Steve shook his head, an incredulous scoff escaping him. “ _Aunt_ Peggy. Tony never told me that, either, and J. A. R. V. I. S. apparently just decided that since he hadn’t told Tony about you, he shouldn’t tell me, either. Didn’t it occur to him that I might want to talk to you, a ‘you’ who remembered me all the time, and remembered us, and the war? A Peggy who could tell me about all of the parts of her life I missed?”

He stood up abruptly. “You should talk to Tony. You should have J. A. R. V. I. S. tell him. He misses his family, and even an artificial you is worlds better than nothing.”

Steve paused, his face buried in his hands again. “I need a minute.”

He left, going back toward the hallway they had entered from, and Natasha glanced apologetically up at the ceiling. “He misses you so much. This is hard for him.”

“I know. I imagine it is even worse now, given everything that has happened to Sergeant Barnes,” Peggy said softly. “I still feel terrible about that. I didn’t know. I never would have left him at HYDRA’s mercy, had I any idea that he was the Winter Soldier. My poor Steve.”

Natasha nodded. “Steve needs someone to talk to, and since you’re here, I think it should be you. I’m going to go find him.”

Natasha knew that she wouldn’t have to go far; Steve wouldn’t leave the building without her. In fact, she found him in the hallway, curled up against the wall, his shoulders shaking silently as tears fell down his cheeks.

Natasha’s heart cracked. She had spent so long unable to feel _anything_ , and then when Coulson rescued her, she had learned, slowly, who she was again. She had been able to feel things again. Now, she loved these people, her team, the only family she had. Steve had been an unexpected friend, a gift. He spent so much of the time being so strong, for all of them, and he was practically indestructible physically, so people tended to forget that he was still just a man. She had seen the fault lines in his emotions during the hunt for Barnes and the split with the Avengers; what had happened to his best friend and his team had destroyed him, and now he was having to come to grips with the fact that the only thing left of Peggy Carter was an artificial consciousness. Natasha knew how much Steve had loved her; all anyone had to do was to watch his face at her funeral to know that.

She sat on the floor next to Steve, and without saying a word, she drew Steve’s head down to her chest and cradled him, letting him cry. She ran her fingers through his hair and hummed snatches of a Russian lullaby that had somehow survived the Red Room’s programming.

When he quieted, Natasha let him up and handed him a handkerchief from the pocket of her leather jacket.

“You should go talk to her,” she said gently. “Go tell her all the things you never got to tell her. Go ask her everything you want to know. I’ll keep watch, just in case.” It was her way of giving him an out. They didn’t need a lookout in this place, but she was certain there were things Steve wanted to say to Peggy – _any_ version of Peggy - that he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

Steve gave her a questioning glance. “You’re sure?”

Natasha gave him a small smile. “I’m more than used to doing stakeouts, Captain. Go on.”

Steve got to his feet and brushed himself off, turning back toward the room that contained Peggy.

“Oh, and Steve?” Natasha said, making him pause.

He lifted his eyebrows at her.

“We can set you up here. No one knows this place is here, and it would take some digging for them to find it. You can stay here for a while and talk to her for as long as you want. You’ll have to leave eventually, but you can always come back,” Natasha reassured him.

Steve nodded, tension draining out of him as he took in her words. Natasha suspected she had defused one of his worries before he even knew it was there. As he collected himself and went to talk to the woman he loved, Natasha took up her stakeout stance, wondering as she did so what Peggy might be able to tell her about the Red Room.

 

3.

“Captain Marvel,” Nick Fury greeted her. Even in exile and in hiding, Fury still managed an impressive air of authority, Carol noted. “It’s good to have you back on our world, especially now. I have to say I wasn’t sure whether to believe it, when I heard you had come back.”

Carol nodded. “It’s been a long road back, but I’m glad to be here, sir. And just to prove to you that I am who I say I am -” Carol held up a small biometric fingerprint scanner that she had managed to get a hold of before their meeting with Fury. Spending two and a half decades away from Earth had meant that she’d had quite a lot to catch up on, but it hadn’t been as difficult as she’d thought, finding something that would identify her to Fury. She still had some old contacts in the service who were willing to help her and keep her under the radar.

She pressed her thumb to the touchscreen, and held it up so that Fury could see the “Danvers, Carol” that came up. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best she could do on such short notice.

“And who have you brought with you?” Fury said suspiciously, gesturing to the cloaked figure who stood at her shoulder. “It isn’t exactly common knowledge that I’m alive, Captain. I would expect you to be more cautious.”

“She’s more or less in the same position, sir, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to help her than you,” Carol said, with a strangely amused smile.

The figure removed the hood of her cloak, and as her face came into view, Nick Fury’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“My apologies for springing this on you, Director Fury,” Peggy said. “I am given to understand that people on Earth think me dead.”

“Well – yes,” Fury said, struggling to pull himself together. “And – pardon me, Director, but – how in the _hell_ are you so young?”

“Director? That’s interesting. So my double did eventually become Director,” Peggy observed shrewdly. “No wonder HYDRA had such an easy time getting into SHIELD.”

“It’s a bit of a story, sir,” Carol jumped in. “I actually found Peggy, back when I was working for SHIELD.”

**1992**

Carol cursed to herself as more gunshots flew past her, and she ducked behind a pile of packing crates, hoping to throw the assailants off her tail. She really didn’t want to die in a secret SHIELD base full of traitors – she hadn’t worked out yet who they were reporting to, but the things going on here were _definitely_ not officially sanctioned, and also definitely illegal. The entire place reeked of treason, but without knowing who the handlers were or how far up they went, Carol had to settle for killing some of them and getting out of here alive. She couldn’t risk them holding her prisoner and finding out about her powers. If she could escape the base, she could take what she knew back to headquarters. There were a handful of people there who she absolutely knew she could trust.

Unfortunately, she could hear the soldiers who had been pursuing her continuing to come closer, and she looked around desperately for some means of escape.

There! There was another door, almost entirely hidden behind more crates. She crawled along the floor until she could get behind the boxes, and fortunately, the stack was tall enough that she could stand up. She wrenched open the heavy steel door and slipped inside, barring the door behind her. She should have a little bit of time – the door was well-hidden, and Carol doubted that most people in the base even knew of its existence.

It was a lab, of some kind. There was highly advanced computer equipment lining the walls, but there was also medical equipment in the middle of the floor, machines grouped around a long glass tube.

As Carol drew near, she could see that the tube held a human figure, and that the tube was _cold_. Once she got a look at the person’s face, however, her whole world tilted.

“Oh, my god,” she murmured. The figure in the tube was Peggy Carter – or an exact replica of a much younger Peggy Carter, at any rate. Whoever was working in here was obviously running some kind of cryogenics experiment, perhaps working on cloning and cryogenics at the same time.

Well, one thing was for sure. Whether the woman in the tube was a clone or not, Carol couldn’t leave _any_ version of Peggy Carter here for the traitors to put to their own uses. She couldn’t imagine what kind of damage they could inflict, with a second Peggy Carter running around doing their bidding.

However, she could not take the tube with her, and she didn’t have much time.

“Please let this work,” Carol prayed under her breath, examining the medical equipment and where it ran into the tube, then looking for the controls on the tube itself. A doctor she was not, but her work at NASA had made her quite familiar with computers and security technology of all kinds.

Tentatively, Carol pressed a sequence of buttons and waited. At worst, a misstep would kill the woman in the tube, and at least then she would be out of the hands of whoever was holding her here. At best, if Carol was right, she would come out of stasis.

Carol breathed a sigh of relief as the tube began to change temperature. She could see the ice evaporating off the glass, and then gradually, the color began to come back to Peggy’s cheeks. The glass on the tube slid back just as Peggy opened her eyes, and right then there was a pounding on the lab door.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Carol said hastily. “My name is Carol Danvers; I’m from SHIELD. Are you Peggy Carter?”

The brunette nodded. “I am. They kidnapped me –”

Carol nodded. “That’s good enough for me, for now, but we have to get out of here alive before you can tell me more.”

Peggy stood up, stepping carefully out of the capsule and shaking her limbs. “I seem to be all right. Do you have another weapon?”

“Not on me, but we’ll find one,” Carol said breathlessly, as another, more ominous boom came from the lab door.

“They’re trying to ram it in,” she said urgently.

“There’s a window,” Peggy said, indicating a small window high up in the wall. “Hang on.”

She pulled off the jacket she’d been wearing, then motioned for Carol to kneel, which Carol did without question. Peggy stepped onto her shoulders as Carol grasped her hands for balance, and then Peggy stood on her own and handily punched out the glass in the window, her fist covered with her jacket. Not wasting any time on words, as they could both hear the metal of the door starting to give, Peggy shimmied through the opening she had created, heedless of the tears the remaining small pieces of glass made in her clothes and skin. She leaned back in the window, arms dangling, and Carol grasped them at the elbows, using the leverage to pull herself up. Peggy was quite strong, and Carol had no trouble working her way through the window with the other woman’s help.

They found themselves in a thicket; the window had been hidden quite effectively. Carol caught her breath while Peggy peered through the bushes.

“There are military trucks,” Peggy whispered. “They’re guarded, but I think we can get to one and take it.”

“We’ll have to take the chance,” Carol said, as the lab door gave way with a crash. “Come on! You first; I’ll cover you.”

The two women ran, heedless of the gunfire that erupted as they did so. Carol took out two soldiers that were running toward them, while Peggy cheerfully punched out the driver of the nearest truck. She cleverly remembered to take his gun, and Carol dispatched the other guard and took his weapon before she jumped into the driver’s seat, while Peggy clambered into the passenger side.

Carol gunned the ignition even before Peggy was properly seated, sending additional soldiers diving out of the way as she threatened to run them down. She headed toward the gate and the only road. Peggy calmly leaned out of the window and managed to take down two of the guards at the gate with her gun, while Carol simply blew through the mechanical arm. She was fairly certain the grill on the front of the truck was shattered, but the truck still ran, which was all that mattered.

Once they had put a fair distance between themselves and the base, Peggy considered the gun in her hand and grinned. “The accuracy of this is really quite amazing.”

Carol began to laugh, high on adrenaline and tension, and Peggy joined her, the two women grinning giddily at each other.

* * *

The base had been buried in the mountains on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, underground and not on any government map. Carol had only found it after a lot of searching and reconnaissance, and no one who worked there would want anyone else to know they existed or had been breached. The two of them were walking targets, but they had a little advantage in the sense that anyone coming after them would have to do it quietly.

They got rid of the truck almost as soon as they could, as it was too conspicuous to travel in for any length of time. They left it on the outskirts of Asheville, driving it into the forest and camouflaging it as best they could, before walking into the city and stopping at the first small motel they found. Carol paid cash, and gave the desk clerk a look that warned him not to ask any questions. She and Peggy took advantage of the tiny bathroom to clean the blood off themselves, before each of them perched on a bed.

“Okay,” Carol sighed. “Now tell me, as quickly as you can, what happened to you.”

Peggy nodded. Carol could tell she was shaken, but she was handling the entire situation with a coolness that Carol wouldn’t have expected. The Peggy Carter who Carol knew was a formidable woman, but it would have been hard to imagine her in a full-fledged combat situation. For this Peggy, however, that seemed to be par for the course.

“I need to know something first,” Peggy asked, her voice trembling just slightly. “What year is it?”

Carol stared. “It’s . . . 1992,” she said slowly.

Peggy’s lips tightened. “All right, then. Well, I suppose the first thing you need to know is that I was kidnapped in 1950.”

Carol’s mind reeled. “Forty years,” she said slowly. “They had you in that tube for over _forty years_?” She took a proper look at what Peggy was wearing, what was left of her suit, her haircut – her clothes and hair were definitely the right style, though there were ways of testing them for authenticity that Carol didn’t have at her disposal at the moment.

“I was at the Playground,” Peggy began. “It’s a base –”

“Yes, I know,” Carol interrupted. “It still exists. I’ve been there.”

“Well, we had just finished constructing it the previous year. I was ambushed. I tried to fight them off, but there were too many of them for one person. And just before they knocked me out, there was a figure – I’ve never seen anything like it. It turned _into_ me.” Peggy shuddered.

“I read about this!” Carol exclaimed. “It was in your file. There was an attack at the Playground in 1950, but the official story was that the attempt to kidnap you was unsuccessful, and you weren’t hurt.” Her face darkened. “They _replaced_ you. The Peggy Carter who is in Washington – she’s a fraud.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Peggy said grimly. “I don’t know who they were, but clearly they wanted to be rid of the real me. But why not just kill me? Why keep me frozen?”

“Too much valuable information and genetics, I would imagine,” Carol said. “They might have needed you someday – either for what you knew or for your biological material, so they didn’t want to kill you. As for the thing that became you, I think I know exactly what that was. I can only take a guess about the people who took you in the first place.”

“Tell me.”

“The thing that turned into you is called a Skrull,” Carol explained. “I had no idea they had made contact with Earth back in 1950. They’re another planetary species entirely, and they’re shapeshifters. They can become anyone or anything, and stay that way permanently unless they will it otherwise. My guess is that they made a deal with the people who took you – and I think they are the same group of people that is currently inhabiting that base you were in. SHIELD is compromised, hugely so. This group wanted into SHIELD, and they wanted their own Peggy Carter puppet – and trust me, the Skrull have their own reasons for being here on Earth. I have scores to settle with them.”

Peggy took that in. “You can . . . get to them?” she asked, astonished. “Interplanetary travel?”

Carol nodded. “It’s possible, though there are very few people who know that right now. I’ve been planning on taking the fight to them.”

“You can’t possibly fight them all by yourself,” Peggy said, staring at her. “That would be mad. A suicide mission.”

“Well . . . Carol said slowly. “That’s not necessarily true. I’m . . . enhanced, is maybe the best way to put it. I can tell you that story later, but let’s just say I have a fair number of advantages in a fight.”

“Take me with you,” Peggy said determinedly.

Carol’s mouth dropped open. “What? Peggy, no. We can get you to SHIELD – there are people I trust. A DNA test – a blood test – will tell them who you are. You can get your life back.”

“What life?” Peggy asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve been asleep for forty years. I know nothing about the current technology or the politics, and while a good number of the people I knew might still be alive, I’m in a body that’s forty years too young. What on earth would I do? Even if they establish who I am and take out the fake me, I can’t just step back into SHIELD. I’d have no idea what I was doing. I’d have to start from ground zero. But if these – Skrull,” she said, hesitating over the unfamiliar word, “are really a threat to Earth, then we can help from that angle. I would like to pay them back for stealing forty years of my life, and the less the people at SHIELD know, the better, particularly the phantom group that took me. And you need backup. I don’t care how super-powered you are – even if you are as physically indestructible as Steve – as Captain America -” she amended quickly, “you need help. No one can watch their own six all the time.”

* * *

“And so . . . you went with her,” Fury said, addressing Peggy. He looked at the two of them. “You’ve been fighting the Skrull, all this time.”

Carol nodded in affirmation. “Even out there, though, we heard about Thanos, and we figured it was time to come back.”

“And it seems that HYDRA was responsible for my imprisonment all along,” Peggy said darkly. “We’ve been here long enough to catch up on that. I can’t believe they were inside SHIELD almost from the beginning.”

“Yes, they were,” Fury said heavily. He took another look at Peggy Carter. “Agent Carter, if you don’t mind my noticing, it seems that you still . . . haven’t aged. How is that possible?”

Peggy and Carol exchanged a look. “We aren’t sure, sir,” Peggy confessed. “It could be the effects of being off the planet – or it could be something they did to me while I was in stasis. We didn’t exactly have human medical equipment while we were off fighting the Skrulls. And their technology is advanced enough that we could have found out, but – I didn’t exactly want to know, if you take my meaning, sir. I just accepted it and used it.”

Fury nodded. He could understand not wanting to know the particulars of being a human lab rat, having been through enough medical procedures himself, some of them quite risky and advanced. All things considered, it wouldn’t have been the duo’s most pressing problem.

“Well, since you have found me, you might as well stay for a while,” Fury decided. “We should keep you two under the radar. Agent Carter, I’ll want to verify your identity, and there’s quite a lot you’ll need to know before we can get you back into the fight here. Most importantly –”

Fury opened a file on his cell phone, which was untraceable and essentially a small computer. He handed it to Peggy as the video footage began to play.

Peggy pressed a hand to her mouth as she watched, her eyes becoming shiny with tears. “Steve,” she whispered.

 

4. 

“Captain Rogers, please trust me,” Phil Coulson said quietly. “I know this is a lot to take in, but I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t some things you absolutely needed to know.”

Steve stared at him blankly. “You were dead. We all thought you were dead.”

“I know,” Phil said, apology coloring his tone. “I was dead, and I was . . . resurrected, for lack of a better way of putting it - and for what it’s worth, I have been through about seven different kinds of hell since then. Trying to keep SHIELD and my team together from the shadows and purge all of the HYDRA agents from our ranks hasn’t been easy, not to mention trying to make sure that everyone with powers doesn’t get locked up in a lab, and battling and escaping from the Kree in the future. It’s been . . . difficult,” Phil finished, his mouth twisting at the understatement.

Steve nodded his acceptance of that, taking in Phil’s sincerity with one thorough sweep of his eyes - and Phil felt an inward shiver of incredulity. Interacting with his childhood hero still hadn’t gotten old.

“So why now?” Steve asked, crossing his arms. “And why me? Why not tell any of the others?”

“It’s not time yet,” Phil said firmly. “They’ll know soon enough, with Thanos and the Chitauri coming down on all of our heads. They’ll have to; my team won’t be invisible anymore once the fighting starts, and neither will I. But I came to get you now because we discovered something. Hence all the subterfuge,” Phil added, gesturing around him to the underground base and the complicated set of instructions on the table that had led Steve to him.

Steve considered him. “It must have something to do with me, or Bucky. After everything that happened with Tony and the others, you wouldn’t come to me specifically unless it had something to do with our past.”

“True enough,” Phil agreed. “But this has more to do with  _your_  past, Captain. Sergeant Barnes is, as far as I know, still safe and sound in Wakanda, and while this will affect him, too, it affects you more than anyone.”

“Then what -” Steve started, but a soft voice interrupted him. 

“Steve.”

Steve turned slowly, unable to believe what his ears were telling him. 

Peggy stood in the doorway.

She was clad in a modern blouse and skirt, though something much closer to the fashions of the ‘40s than Steve was used to seeing. And she way  _young_  - so young - she looked almost exactly as she had in the war, perhaps just a touch older, with the same rich brunette waves (which were hanging loose, now, rather than in the carefully controlled style women had worn), the same warm brown eyes, the same full lips.

Steve found himself moving toward her before he consciously thought about it.

He stopped about a foot away from her, suddenly both shy and wary, fearing a trick and at the same time feeling like the awkward 90-pound kid from Brooklyn who didn’t know how to talk to a woman.

“Peggy?” he whispered shakily. 

Peggy’s mouth curved a bit, and Steve could see moisture in her eyes as she nodded.

“It’s me, Steve - well, mostly,” she amended, with a quick look over his shoulder at Phil.

Steve lifted a hand and carefully ran a hand down her cheekbone.

“But - you were dead,” he said incredulously, his voice hoarse. “I buried you - God, Peggy, I carried your casket!  _How?_ ”

He could feel anger and fear beginning to spill over into his shock, and Peggy could see it on his face, too, for she immediately stepped closer and put her hands on his shoulders.

“I know, darling,” she said soothingly, and the word made Steve gasp as something in his chest twisted. Hearing her say  _darling_  again hurt in ways he thought he had long put to rest.

“I was dead, that much is true,” Peggy reassured him. “Everything - everything since you came back, Steve, all of that was real. I remember it all, too. But then I was - brought back. Like Agent Coulson. Come here.”

She guided him back over to the chairs where he and Phil had been sitting. Coulson, thankfully, had given them their moment and simply stayed standing near his chair, and as they returned, he sat again, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

Steve sat abruptly, feeling like he couldn’t hold himself up. Peggy sat more gracefully, but cautiously, and just as cautiously, she leaned toward him and took his hand.

“Agent Coulson and his team found me, and in so many ways, I am so lucky they did,” Peggy continued. “Phil has been through the same procedure they put me through - or something similar - and so he and Dr. Simmons were able to help me, fill in the blanks as it were.”

Phil picked up the narrative before Steve could start asking questions, doubtless seeing the frustration in Steve’s face.

“When I died, I was injected with something called GH. 325,” Phil explained.  ”It’s a serum derived from an alien race called the Kree - it causes cellular regeneration, rapid healing, and sometimes can bring the recently deceased back from the dead. In humans, however, it also causes eventual psychosis.” 

Steve gave Coulson a horrified glance, and then turned an even more horrified and fearful gaze at Peggy, who shook her head quickly.

“We don’t think that will happen to me, Steve - let Coulson finish,” she said.

“In order to prevent the psychosis, I was also put into something called a Memory Overwriting Machine,” Phil said, his eyes turning dark. “It’s - incredibly painful - it erases a person’s memories of their previous life, while they are still awake. In my case, Fury only erased the memories of my death and resurrection, and all of my previous involvement with GH. 325. That’s a complicated story, and not one you need right now,” he added with a grimace. “But, all of the GH. 325 was destroyed, or so my team and I thought. However, I should know by now never to put anything past Fury,” Phil said, a trifle bitterly.

“We found Peggy in one of his secret bases - one even I didn’t know existed until a few weeks ago,” Phil continued. “She was still recovering, and there was a full medical team on-site. When we got there, she wasn’t conscious, and according to what the doctors told Jemma - that is, Dr. Simmons - and I, Peggy was given a newer variant of GH. 325. Apparently, Fury went back to the place where we had buried all of the GH. 325 and managed to retrieve some of it. Don’t ask me how; we imploded the place,” Phil finished, his lips tightening again at the memory.

Steve had been listening in stony-faced silence, but at that point he turned to Peggy, clutching her hand more closely with his own. “But if you were given some variant of this 325, doesn’t that mean the psychosis will eventually follow?” he asked in anguish. He had already had to watch Peggy lose so much of who she was – he wasn’t sure he could do it again.

“Dr. Simmons doesn’t think so,” Peggy said, returning the squeeze of his hand, and Steve let out an involuntary sigh of relief. “She tells me that Fury or his scientists must have altered the serum – it is similar, but not the same, given what she can tell from my blood. She thinks that the goal was to retain the healing properties of 325, but perhaps enhance its ability to de-age people – hence the reason I am apparently 25 again, at least physically,” she concluded with a wry smile. “Agent Fury and I need to have another little chat about playing God.” 

Phil’s eyebrows went up at that. “ _Agent_  Fury?”

“I recruited and trained Nick Fury, Agent Coulson,” Peggy said crisply. “He was always a bit high-handed. I gave him lectures quite frequently even after I retired.”

Steve, to everyone’s surprise including his own, collapsed into laughter, his shoulders shaking. “Of course you did,” he said, when he could speak again. “I am not surprised in the slightest.”

Even Phil was grinning broadly. “I am going to enjoy seeing you and Nick Fury in the same room, Director Carter.”

“It’s Peggy, please,” she corrected him with a smile. “Whatever I am now, I’m not Director anymore, and you’ve saved my life, or as good as. Agent Fury might have technically made it possible, but I’ve no idea what his plans were for me, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for bringing me with you, and back to Steve.”

“Director Fury told me once that he brought me back from the dead - despite my extreme disapproval of the procedures involved - because he considered me just as important as an Avenger,” Phil said. “We’ve had our clashes over the years, but I have to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case. If he brought you back as well - and did a better job of it than he did with me, since he had more time - clearly he thought you were just as important.” 

Steve’s hand tightened around Peggy’s again as something occurred to him. “Was it - painful?” he asked hesitantly. “Do you - remember it, like Agent Coulson does?”

He was going to pin Fury to the wall with his shield if Fury had hurt Peggy. He was unspeakably glad to have her back - but Phil’s memories of his resurrection were clearly agonizing, and so help him, if Fury had inflicted that kind of pain on Peggy - 

“I do,” Peggy said softly. “But it wasn’t like what you experienced, I don’t think,” she said, addressing Coulson momentarily. “It was like - like having an extended dream, almost like reliving all of my life, until I woke up. And it was physically painful at times - as if I was wounded or had been in a bad fight - I could feel the pain even in my sleep. I can only imagine that it was part of the physical regression, as my body made itself younger. Perhaps the serum was repairing all of the age damage to my body, and that was what caused all of the pain.”

Coulson nodded. “That seems likely. I’m grateful your experience was less traumatizing than mine,” he said sincerely, though a pained look appeared on his face again at the memory of his own procedure.

“So what happens now?” Steve asked, looking from Peggy to Coulson.

“Fury was either going to bring Peggy back to direct SHIELD, since he can’t do that as an international fugitive and I’m not the most popular person at the moment,” Phil said, “or he was bringing her back for you and the Avengers. The latter has now been accomplished. He may have even meant for me to find her, since he does love to be sneaky.” There was respect and a little amusement in Phil’s voice as he went on. “The lot of you are going to need a handler, especially after all of this nonsense with the Sokovia Accords, and who better than Peggy Carter?”

“Yes. You and I need to have a conversation about that, Steve Rogers,” Peggy said sternly. “I’ve been reading and catching up on what’s happened the past few years, since my memory during the Alzheimer’s is patchy. What on earth were you thinking?”

Steve gave a real, warm smile this time. “You were the one who always said to do what I felt was right, even if no one else did. I was only doing as you said.”

Peggy swatted him on the arm. “Impossible man. You could have gotten yourself killed about a thousand times over.”

Steve’s face darkened. “It was Bucky, Peg. I had to. They tortured him – they turned him into a monster, totally against his will. What else could I do?”

Peggy leaned in and rested her forehead against his, her voice suddenly thick. “I know. I read about it. I’m – I’m horrified that this was going on while I was Director and I didn’t know. We knew about the Soldier – but we could never catch him – and I never dreamed it was James. We were all so convinced he had died. I’m so sorry, darling. Really, I would have expected nothing less than what you did – and the Sokovia Accords make sense in theory, but are problematic in a million ways in practice. You were right. And Bucky is safe now, at least for now, and that’s the best outcome you could have asked for.”

Steve’s expression lightened, but only a fraction. “I don’t know if Tony will ever forgive me. Or Bucky. He understands, I think, that Bucky wasn’t doing any of it of his own free will – but it was his parents. And how he lost them has never really stopped hurting him, I know that much.”

Peggy closed her eyes, letting tears slide down her cheeks. “Oh, Howard,” she whispered. “I know you didn’t know him as well as I did, Steve, or for as long, but he was a good man. A social disaster, but a good man. Like Tony. And Maria loved him. They didn’t deserve to die that way.  But it wasn’t Bucky’s fault, either. He had no control over what they told him to do, and no choice in carrying it out.”

She stood up, determination in every line of her body as she wiped her cheeks. “You leave Anthony to me. There is nothing that has happened to that boy, or anything he has done in the entirety of his life, that a good talking-to from his Aunt Peggy couldn’t fix.”

Steve gaped, and Coulson spoke again, making them both jump, as they had forgotten he was there. “ _Aunt_ Peggy?”

“Tony knew you?” Steve said in disbelief, almost at the same time.

Peggy rolled her eves. “Don’t be idiots. Of course he _knows_ me; he has known me his whole life. I’m his godmother. We haven’t been – close – the last few years; Stane drove a wedge between us at precisely the right time, that odious man,” she muttered angrily. “But he still came to see me. He was very careful never to come when you were there, and I’m sure that was on purpose,” she said, addressing Steve. “You two have been at loggerheads so often that I’m sure he didn’t know how to tell you – possibly didn’t want to. He always did like to have all my attention when he could,” she said, smiling fondly.

“Well, well, well. That was a benefit I hadn’t been anticipating – having someone else around who can actually talk sense into a Stark,” Phil said, highly amused by Peggy’s revelations. “Now that your mind is all there again, we need to get you into a room with Pepper Potts. She’ll be delighted to have someone to commiserate with.”

“Oh, yes, that would be lovely,” Peggy beamed. “Pepper is perhaps the best thing that has happened to Tony – she certainly keeps him together. He only brought her with him once or twice, but I liked her so much.”

“Well, I think the best course of action for now is to keep this quiet,” Phil said, standing as well. Steve quickly followed suit, as he still really thought of Phil as a senior officer. “It won’t be for long, as I said - things with the Thanos are going to come to a head relatively quickly, and so everyone will know soon enough – but it would be hard to explain how you came back without explaining about me, Peggy, and so I think maybe you should stay here with us. We’d be delighted to have you,” Phil said with a grin. “Having Peggy Carter around as we’re trying to rebuild SHIELD can only bring us luck – and a whole lot of useful institutional memory.”

“Mmmm, maybe not,” Peggy disagreed. “It would be easy enough to explain about Fury without bringing you into it. But I agree that it’s probably best not to let anyone know I’m here just yet. I can think of a lot of people, including a lot of our apparent political enemies, who would be none too pleased to see me. And everything that I can fill in for you about past SHIELD operations will be useful, I hope.”

“Captain Rogers, I’d offer to let you stay, but there are people who know about me and my team, small though that number is,” Phil said apologetically. “If the U. S. government got wind of the fact that you were here – “

“Yeah, they’d want to bring me in,” Steve said grimly. “I know.”

“I can, however, have Fitz make sure your phone is secure and untraceable, and I will give Peggy a phone so that you two can check in. Something tells me you would find much riskier ways to talk to her, otherwise.” Coulson glanced between Steve and Peggy and gave an understanding smile. “We have some time before we have to go. I’ll see you in a bit.”  And he sauntered out, leaving Steve and Peggy smiling hesitantly at each other.

“Peggy –” Steve started, taking her hands and choosing his words carefully. “I don’t expect us to just jump right back into being – anything. You’ve lived a whole life that I wasn’t there for – and honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever have this again. I wasn’t sure I _wanted_ it again, after everything that’s happened. I’m not the same person that I was, and I know you aren’t, either. We can – start over, maybe? Get to know each other again?”

Peggy nodded slowly. “I’m not the same,” she agreed. “I’ve lived a lot of life, seen so much – but Steve, I need you to know that I never forgot you. I lived, I loved, I was happily married – but you were always in my heart. And I don’t know if ‘start over’ is the right way to think of this – I would never want to erase what we know of each other, or anything we that we had. Perhaps – we can think of it as finally getting our chance? You still owe me a dance.”

Peggy’s eyes were wet and her voice was trembling as she finished, even though she managed a shaky smile at the end, and Steve found that his own throat was choked and his eyes misty. He wrapped his arms around Peggy and she immediately did the same, resting against his chest.

“God, it is so good to have you back,” he whispered. “You always were the right partner, Peg. Just be warned, I’ll probably still step on your toes.” He smiled against her hair, closing his eyes in contentment. 

“You’ll be there,” Peggy whispered in return. “That’s all that matters.”

 


End file.
